Mark, 11 Weeks and 4 Days

When I glance at my reflec­tion in the mir­ror, I see a woman, com­plete with boobs and a butt. When I hear myself talk in Eng­lish, I detect a hint of a French accent in my voice; yet my French sounds strange to native speak­ers: I’m an immi­grant, a French and a Cana­dian. When my Black­berry beeps, I’m a trans­la­tor, edi­tor or writer—depending on the assign­ment. When I’m with Feng, I’m a part­ner, a friend, a wife. When I hear Mark cry or when he grips my fin­ger and won’t let go, it stirs some­thing deep inside me and I real­ize that I’m a mother, albeit a new one.

I have too many dis­tinct iden­ti­ties these days. It’s tough to rec­on­cile them all. I feel like I lost myself in the process of trying.

Dur­ing the nine months of preg­nancy, my chang­ing body was for­eign to me. I didn’t label myself as “ugly” or “pretty” but I found it hard to look at myself naked in the mirror—after a shower, I would reach for a towel right away and wrap myself into it as if my sore breasts and my grow­ing belly weren’t there.

The fact that I felt treated as a baby incu­ba­tor didn’t help either. I was no longer a woman, I was a preg­nant woman. That two-syllable word changed everything—at least the way I was see­ing myself and the way the rest of the world was treat­ing me, some­time with cau­tion, some­time with con­de­scen­sion.

I tried to sur­vive and to adapt to these changes. I made con­ces­sions and I worked on bak­ing that baby the best I could. I also tried to live a nor­mal life: I didn’t give up yoga, trav­el­ing or veg­e­tar­ian sushi.

From a phys­i­cal point of view, I had it easy. Like my ob-gyn said, “your body was made to have chil­dren.” From a psy­cho­log­i­cal point of view, it was another story. I was bor­der­line depressed at times even though I still can’t pin­point what trig­gered that sense of loss of con­trol and why I found being preg­nant so chal­leng­ing. It’s one of these things I can’t explain.

I’m no longer preg­nant (yay!) and I’m embrac­ing moth­er­hood. Even though it still feels new, unreal and scary, I’m happy to be Mark’s mother.

But I don’t want to trade the mul­ti­fac­eted iden­ti­ties it took me 29 years to build for a one-size-fits-all “mother” label. I want to add that moth­er­hood sta­tus to my per­sonal iden­tity because I am still an indi­vid­ual, with hopes and dreams—for Mark, of course, but for Feng and I and for myself as well.

To me, moth­er­hood is part of a pur­pose but not my ulti­mate goal in life.

That’s it. I said it. Sounds self­ish? Maybe. These days, any­thing sends me on a guilt trip anyway.

It’s chal­leng­ing. Being a new mother is time-consuming and my world does revolve around Mark these days. I do trans­la­tions with Mark in my arms, I bot­tle feed between two assign­ments while grab­bing a bite for myself, and I feel like throw­ing a party when­ever I get to wear “out­side clothes”, i.e. my reg­u­lar jeans and t-shirt instead of a milk-stained sweater and sweat pants. I can­celed so many cof­fee meet­ing with my friends because I was on “mommy duty” that I’m sur­prise we still bother to try to hook up. And most days I’m so exhausted that check­ing what’s going on in the world, doing some­thing nice for myself, hug­ging Feng or sim­ply day dream is beyond me.

Maybe I’m too stub­born. Maybe I shouldn’t cling to my other iden­ti­ties. Maybe I should stop work­ing, stop try­ing to meet friends, stop try­ing to be a woman and embrace moth­er­hood fully, what­ever that means.

But that wouldn’t be “me”, who­ever “me” is these days. And I don’t think I would be doing Mark a favour either—I don’t want to put all my hopes on him, that’s too much pres­sure for a kid. I’m also hap­pier when I feel com­plete and that includes writ­ing, work­ing, trav­el­ing, exer­cis­ing, eat­ing choco­late, wear­ing non-politically cor­rect t-shirts and brows­ing silly websites.

I believe in bal­ance. I don’t think I can have it all but I will try.

Mean­while, I think I’ll just focus on being Juli­ette, in good and in bad.

Related arti­cles:

1. Of Los­ing Con­trol (And Chang­ing That Pyjama)
2. 10 Signs You Are the Mother of a Baby
3. Mark, the Sling and I Against The World
4. The World: Meet Mark, Born 12÷10÷12!
5. Me, a Mommy? Seriously?
6. Sexy Boots